I am leaving you in the company of trees And firs, whose only season Is greenery. I am leaving under an open sky, open With the idea that the season was not a utopia. I am leaving you in the house of blooming…
Delirium
It rained cats and dogs, And the sky poured down on earth. Hollyhock flowers know not to whom to pray.
My Love is so Ignorant
My love drinks water from plastic cups. Leaning its elbows against the wooden table, Lost in thought, it watches the river going through the city. My love is so thoughtful and thirsty That it fails to feel the touch of rain wetting its hands. Not knowing that the SOURCE is behind the mountain, My love still seeks water in plastic cups. My love is so ignorant and thirsty…
Note: these poems are translated from Albanian by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj and are included in my poetry book A Gospel of Light published by Aquillrelle.
Bio: Alisa Velaj was born in the southern port town of Vlora, Albania in 1982. She has been shortlisted for the annual international Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in UK in June 2014. She was also shortlisted for the Aquillrelle Publishing Contest 3 in January 2015 and was the first runner up in this contest. Velaj’s full length book of poetry A Gospel of Light is published by Aquillrellle in June 2015. Her works have appeared in a number of print and online international magazines, including: Blue Lyra Review (USA), The Cannon’s Mouth (UK), The Missing Slate (UK), The Midnight Diner (USA), Poetica (USA), Time of Singing (USA 2014 and 2015), Canto (USA), Enhance (USA), Ann Arbor Review (USA) The French Literary Review (UK),SpeedPoets (Australia), , Erbacce (UK), FourW twenty-five Anthology(Australia), Poetry Super Highway (USA), Knot Magazine (USA Winter 2014 and Fall 2015), The Otter (USA), The Journal (UK), Phenomenal Literature (New Delhi, India), Spark (India), The Atherton Review (USA), Indiana Voice Journal (USA), A New Ulster (UK), Section8Magazine (USA), LUMMOX Poetry Anthology 3 and 4 (USA), Miele 1110(Belgium), WritingRawPoetry (USA), Three And A Half Point 9 (UK), Cafe Dissensus Everyday (USA), Anthology by Mago Books. (USA), The Dallas Review (USA), See Spot Run Magazine (USA), Eunoia Review (USA), The Creative Mind(Australia) Angry Manifesto (UK), The Linnet's Wings (UK), The Poetry Shed (UK), Poetry Scotland (UK), The Write Angle(UK), Reflections (UK), Blink Ink (USA), Of/with Journal (USA), Harbinger Asylum (USA), Clockwise Cat (USA), Stanzas (UK), Cambridge Creatives (UK), Coldnoon Journal (India) , East Coast Ink Magazine (USA), Duane's PoeTree(USA), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), 1947 Literary Magazine (USA), 63 Channels Magazine (USA), Free Lit Magazine(Canada), The Syzygy Poetry Journal(USA), and Aquillrelle Magazine (Belgium). She also has poems to publish in the forthcoming issues of The Seventh Quarry, (UK) and Envoi Magazine (UK).